IFAW has just spent two weeks with BAWA and partners in Bali, working on ground-breaking strategies for sustainable improvement in the island’s animal welfare practices and, consequently, in human health.

Last week in the Gianyar community of Pejeng, 80 healthy and vaccinated dogs were inhumanely poisoned to death with strychnine over two days after an imported breed dog was identified as rabies-positive.

The killings took place during Odalan – a Balinese ceremony to purify and bless the community’s main temple. As processions came and went from the temple, dying and dead dogs lined the roadsides. Tourists wept in disbelief.

Both the Bali Vet Association and BAWA had worked in this area to vaccinate and sterilise the dogs. Then authorities killed them. Many of them were beloved pets.

WARNING: Mass elimination of vaccinated Bali heritage dogs in Pejeng and other communities wipes out critical herd immunity created by mass vaccination to protect dog and human populations from rabies. Pejeng and other such communities are now at greater risk of rabies.

FACT: The use of strychnine to kill animals is widely-condemned by animal protection and public health groups throughout the world.

At the entrance to a main public market, a Pejeng Bali heritage dog dies in terrible pain … and in vain..

FACT: The only effective and humane way to control rabies is through mass vaccination. BAWA’s previous work in Bali and the work of others overseas proves that mass vaccination WILL control and eradicate rabies to save human and animal lives.